"
"No," replied the girl, looking at her with a certain astonishment, "I
should think not. It would be strange, indeed, if I were not familiar
here. The only strange thing is to feel that I am not at home here, that
I am a guest in this house."
"You are not a guest," exclaimed Miss Ludington, hurriedly, for she saw
the dazed look coming again into the girl's eyes. "You shall be mistress
here. Paul and I ask nothing better than to be your servants."
To pass from the waking to the dreaming state is in general to exchange a
prosaic and matter-of-fact world for one of fantastic improbabilities;
but it is safe to assume that the three persons who fell asleep beneath
Miss Ludington's roof that morning, just as the birds began to twitter,
encountered in dreamland no experiences so strange as those which they
had passed through with their eyes open the previous evening.
CHAPTER IX.
The day following, Paul was downstairs before either Ida or Miss
Ludington. He was sitting on the piazza, which was connected with the
sitting-room by low windows opening like doors, when he heard a scream,
and Ellen, the housemaid, who had been busy in the sitting-room, ran out
upon the piazza with a face like a sheet.
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